'It's a book to read and then read again' The Book Bag 'A beautifully written debut that's both moving and humorous with characters I truly cared about. I loved everything about it!' Claire Douglas, Sunday Times bestselling author of Local Girl Missing and Last Seen Alive *********** 'This is where she sleeps. A cupboard. A bedroom. A windowless box.' Sisters Dolly and Tala have never felt further from home. In the blistering heat of Singapore, they spend their days enabling ex-pats to have lives they could never afford for themselves. Even though she has little freedom, Dolly can just about live with her job if it means she's able to support her beloved young daughter back in the Philippines. One day - if she's lucky - Dolly may even be able to go back and see her. Tala, however, just can't keep her mouth shut about the restrictive, archaic rules maids are forced to abide by on pain of deportation. She risks everything to help her fellow maids, who have struggled to have their voices heard for far too long. In a world where domestic workers are treated so poorly, The Maid's Room explores how women can come together to change each other's lives, and be the architects of their own futures.

At a very young age, Olivia left her family and traditions in Mexico to live with her mother, Carmen, in one of Los Angeles's most exclusive and nearly all-white gated communities. Based on over twenty years of research, Romero brings Olivia's remarkable story to life. We watch as she struggles through adolescence, declares her independence and eventually goes off to college and becomes a successful professional. Much of her story is told in Olivia's voice and we hear of both her triumphs and her setbacks. Romero explores this story about belonging, identity, and resistance, illustrating Olivia's challenge to establish her sense of identity, and the patterns of inclusion and exclusion in her life. Romero points to the hidden costs of paid domestic labor that are transferred to the families of private household workers and nannies, and shows how everyday routines are important in maintaining and assuring that various forms of privilege are passed on from one generation to another. She shows how mythologies of meritocracy, the land of opportunity, and the American dream remain firmly in place while simultaneously erasing injustices and the struggles of the working poor. From publisher description.

Lispector’s most shocking novel. The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector’s mystical novel of 1964, concerns a well-to-do Rio sculptress, G.H., who enters her maid’s room, sees a cockroach crawling out of the wardrobe, and, panicking, slams the door—crushing the cockroach—and then watches it die. At the end of the novel, at the height of a spiritual crisis, comes the most famous and most genuinely shocking scene in Brazilian literature… Lispector wrote that of all her works this novel was the one that “best corresponded to her demands as a writer.”

She began to feel dizzy...and before she knew it, she was falling. She was amazed when she realized that she hadn't felt a thud. She continued to 'fall' for what seemed like minutes. She felt like Alice falling through the rabbit hole and wondered what she would find when she finally landed.During a dance performance, Taylor and Leslie mysteriously fall into the enchanted land of Larkspur. With the help of Redmond, the great counselor-in-training, they discover their mission: to perform the magical Dance of the Dawn in order to help their beloved dance instructor, Madame Lumiere, find her way home from the Earthly Realm. But first they must rescue the adored talking pet of the Fiery One and aid Little Light, the glowing princess, as she bravely sets off to rid Larkspur of the cruel Puranna and despicable Derrick of Dungeoness. If everything goes as planned, Taylor and Leslie will also play an important role in freeing Larkspur's true king and queen from the Murky Realm, where they have been imprisoned for over a year. Join Taylor and Leslie in Anastacia Hawkins'sLarkspuras they discover the depths of their courage and faith and the risks they are willing to take for friendship. You will fall in love with the Areli, the amazing people of light, and Larkspur, a land where beauty and the arts reign and magic abounds.

In 1929, an explosion in a Missouri dance hall killed forty-two people. Who was to blame? Mobsters from St Louis? Embittered gypsies? The preacher who cursed the waltzing couples for their sins? Or could it just have been a colossal accident? Alma Dunahew, whose scandalous younger sister was among the dead, believes the answer lies in a dangerous love affair, but no one will listen to a maid from the wrong side of the tracks. It is only decades later that her grandson hears her version of events - and must decide if it is the right one.